


better and better then worse then better than ever

by 17826



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Family Dynamics, First Kiss, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Love Confessions, M/M, Polish Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie's Extended Family, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, The Turtle (IT) CAN Help Us, housework is something that can actually be so personal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 18:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/17826/pseuds/17826
Summary: Sonia gets called out of town so Eddie gets to go to Richie's for a sleepover.





	better and better then worse then better than ever

**Author's Note:**

> just re: formatting - when dialogue is in italics , that means it's in Polish , translated as Eddie would understand it as the POV character . i wanna come up with a more elegant way to do that but i haven't yet so shrug emoji
> 
> title is from I Feel Better by Frightened Rabbit , a Very Eddie Band if we're being honest  
_Now I'm free in parentheses_  
_And I'm not sure what I ought to do with it_  
_It sits in the house, bright eyes and raised hands_  
_If I ignore its advances then the hand goes down_

"Eddie bear, come down please!"

Eddie let his book fall onto his chest but otherwise didn't move; he looked over at the small strip of wall above his bedroom door.

"_Sweetheart, come down now!_" This time, the call came in Polish - it often did if he didn't respond fast enough, as if his mother thought that it could compel his body to movement better, that his blood would recognise the language even when he struggled to speak it himself.

"Coming," he called back, and bookmarked his page before swinging to his feet.

"Not so fast down those stairs, _sweetie_," Sonia said with a saccharine concern in her voice as he came to a halt in front of her, "if you tripped, you could do all sort of damage, you could break your arm again, or worse-"

"Sorry, mom," he said quickly and she frowned at the interruption. She patted the chair next to hers and he took a seat.

When she spoke it was matter of fact, as though she was saying something with no more emotional content than the back of a milk carton. "Now, your aunt Diedre has been in the hospital for a few weeks and it looks unlikely that she will last the night."

Eddie looked at the floor. They didn't see Diedre's side of the family much.

"Her fool of a husband is hysterical, he wants me to go up and help with the whole thing," she said, preening slightly, "especially since their nasty daughter of course can't take time off from that _den of sin_ she runs, so I'm driving over after lunch."

Eddie had always liked his cousin Lucy, and especially liked her now he'd worked out that the _den of sin_ was a gay women's refuge. Bev would approve of that, he thought with the newfound strength he kept behind his solar plexus, though it was not without the pang of sadness he felt whenever he thought about the lack of letters from Portland.

"Obviously, a hospital is no place for someone with your weak sensibilities, so I am going to call Judith from church and ask her to-"

"I'm not going with you?"

She scowled. "_Stop interrupting, Edek!_" She snapped. "I'm going to call Judith and ask her to take you for the night."

Eddie saw his chance; before summer, he would never have tried anything like this, but he supposed there must be some benefit to battling a killer clown from space. "Judith had a cold last week, there's a flu going round the congregation at the moment," he lied, "I don't want to risk catching it, common colds can easily develop into-"

"Pneumonia," she said in the tone people usually reserve for a particularly beloved French painter. She looked strangely vindicated. "I always knew that building needed better insulation. Well, that's off the table then, perhaps it's best if you skip church tomorrow too, _darling_. Do you, uh..." She looked, if possible, even more pained. "Do you think any of your friends might be able to...?"

This was going better than Eddie could have hoped. "Yes! Bill's away, but Richie is always around?"

"How about that nice Stan?" Of all his friends, she approved most of Stan's obvious cleanliness, almost enough that she could overlook his obvious Jewishness too.

"Stan's not allowed sleepovers at the moment," Eddie said, "but Richie-"

"Do you have no other friends we could ask?" She spoke over him, exasperated. He didn't know how she expected him to curate endless friendships when she wouldn't let him so much as ask to attend a party.

"There's Mike Hanlon?" He didn't mention Ben, not wanting a repeat of her lecture on the dangers of overeating, or perhaps not wanting to give her an option she might actually take. He liked Ben a lot, but...

Her face soured. She was obviously weighing up her distaste for Richie against her unspoken racism. Behind his back, Eddie crossed his fingers.

"Do you know the Tozier's number?" She said, finally. "I should speak with his mother, make sure their house is suitable for you."

Eddie leapt up, nodding vigorously. "I'll get you the phone!" Fuck, had this actually worked? He tried to tamp down the butterflies in his stomach as he punched in the number and heard it ring. He passed his mother the handset.

They both listened to the ringing, her up close and him through the tinny vibrations between them.

"-and turn the oven off! Tozier household, Maggie speaking, hello?" Maggie's voice was slightly out of breath.

"Yes, hello, this is Sonia Kaspbrak," his mother said, tone already disapproving.

"Sonia, hi!" Maggie Tozier was, as ever, ineffably friendly. "How are you?"

"Yes," she said awkwardly. "I'm sorry for any imposition-"

"Oh, don't worry-"

"-but I've been called away on a family emergency," she plowed on, "and I was wondering if you could take Eddie for the night." Her voice was so flat it was almost concave but Eddie still felt like he'd drunk a litre of pop, fizzy as he was with anticipation.

"Of course! We'd love to have Eddie, we always love having him round," Maggie said brightly, and Eddie had to pinch his arm to stop himself smiling. Her tone became concerned. "Are your family alright? Is there anything we can do?"

"Yes, no, thank you," his mother said, physically cringing away from the prospect of telling Maggie anything personal. "If you would just make sure Eddie eats at least two portions of vegetables tonight and remembers to take his pills, that he's in bed at 8:45 and you can send him home tomorrow before lunch."

Maggie replied with something agreeable and placatory and Eddie stopped listening, already imagining a night of movie marathons and as many beers as he and Richie could blag out of Went's secret stash.

"Yes, I'll drop him off on my way out of town after lunch," his mom said as he tuned back in. Her voice became that of a woman swallowing a lemon. "Thank you, Mrs Tozier."

"Please, Sonia, call me Maggie!"

She gave him the phone like it was a hot potato. She probably intended him to hang it up but he put it to his ear. Her eyes narrowed. "Thank you, Maggie," he said.

"Eddie!" Maggie's voice was warm and had that hint of laughter she carried in the crinkles at the corner of her eyes. "It'll be lovely to have you, Richie always has the best time when you're round. We'll see you after lunch, yeah?"

"Yeah, see you then," Eddie said.

"Bye, chick!"

"Bye, Maggie," and then he did hang up.

His own mom was grinding her teeth. "You should refer to adults as Mr or Mrs," she said, "it's inappropriate for her to ask you to call her by her Christian name, _very rude_."

"Yes, mom," he said.

"Now you go up and pack, I'll get your medication ready." She shook her head. "_Such an inconvenience_. Remember to take your warmest pyjamas, we don't know how cold they might keep their house!"

Already on his way up the stairs, Eddie repeated himself. "Yes, mom!"

She continued complaining to herself as she bustled around the kitchen, but he tuned her out, buoyant on the excitement of a whole night at Richie's.

When he arrived at the Toziers' two and a half slow hours later, it was to a house in the full swing of a family-wide tidying effort. His mother, who didn't want to risk any interaction with Maggie by walking him up to the door, didn't know this or surely she would have refused to let Eddie out and instead just taken him to New Hampshire regardless. Dust was a big trigger for asthma, he thought automatically, then reminded himself that he didn't actually have asthma anyway.

"It's my birthday," explained Went, as he closed the door behind Eddie, a wave to his mum going unacknowledged, "so my side of the family are coming over in a few hours, it'll be a lot of fun."

Eddie, who had expected a full day of lounging about on Richie's bed as they ate too much sugar, wasn't sure how to feel about that. "Happy birthday, Went," he said politely. Family gatherings were a thoroughly sanitised affair in the Kaspbrack household but he was sure that wouldn't be the case here.

"Thank you, Eddie," Went said with a smile that would be familiar to anyone who has seen Richie laugh.

"Eddie?" There came a voice from the top of the stairs, preceding a Richie in the garish combination of a green tie-dye t shirt and yellow rubber gloves, magnified eyes narrowed through his glasses. "Eds, baby, what are you doing here?" He hopped down the stairs two at a time, gangly limbs adding to the general impression of an oversized grasshopper. Then his socks met the newly polished floor.

Eddie caught him as he slipped across the hall like Bambi on ice. "My mom's gone for a night! I'm sleeping over," he said, voice loud with excitement.

Richie gave a shouting laugh-cheer and found his balance to hold his hand up for a high-five. Eddie looked at the soap suds on his rubber gloves suspiciously. Richie sighed, grabbed his wrist, and pulled his hand up to clap their palms together anyway. "Dream team!" He said, as if explaining the situation.

"Ew, let me go, that's fu- that's gross!" Eddie deliberately didn't look at Went as Richie cackled.

"Nice save," Went said mildly and Eddie unsuccessfully willed the blush off his cheeks. "Now, Eds, if you're part of the host family tonight then that means you have to help clean. Scritch, could you lend him a messy shirt? That's a nice polo, we wouldn't want it getting stained before the banquet."

"Without a doubt, your birthdayness," Richie said imperiously, grabbing Eddie's hand this time and already dragging him upstairs. "We will return posthaste for the assignment of roles. Pip pip!"

"I know the way, that's my bad arm!" Eddie complained, but Richie wasn't really tugging that hard so he didn't mind when he didn't let go.

Once Eddie was suitably kitted out in an oversized t shirt with a Listerine promotional slogan on it, they spent the next few hours in a whirlwind of activities that actually did leave the house looking tidier. This should have made Eddie suspicious that Richie might have been replaced by perhaps a shapeshifter seeking to take over the world one teenager at a time, except the constant stream of chat made it hard to think past whatever meaningless film they were nitpicking. He'd just never seen Richie being so... Helpful.

"We're finished!" Richie crowed to Maggie in the kitchen once they'd straightened all the cushions in the front room, dusted the windowsills, and returned the piles of VHS tapes to their shelves. "What's next?"

"That was quick!" She smiled at them over the potatoes she was peeling. "Could you get the spare plates from the garage then?"

They went down into the garage and were back in less than five minutes, an agreement going unspoken that they would not linger in a dark room longer than they had to. Richie recounted the latest Star Trek episode even louder than usual and, in order to not make two trips, they stacked the bowls high enough in Eddie's arms that he could only see where he was going by watching the floor, but they didn't break anything.

Maggie winced when she saw them. "Richie, Jesus! Maybe not so precarious next time, yeah? You're meant to be a good influence on him, Eddie!"

"Yes mom!"

"Sorry Maggie!"

"It's okay," she said, and she meant it. She smiled at him as if she knew what was happening and Eddie's heart restarted, anxiety dissipating as fast as it had risen.

Richie was typically unfazed. "What next?"

She considered them. "How's your allergies at the moment, Eddie?"

He wanted to tell her he didn't know if he actually even had allergies anymore but he didn't know how to say it. He shot a glance at Richie, who was watching him with an expression he'd never seen before, something unreadable. Richie answered for him. "They're fine!"

"Well, could you guys hoover the landing upstairs?"

"On it!" Richie was out the door before she'd finished speaking.

"Thanks, boys!" She called after them.

They took it in turns with the vacuum, passing it off as they avoided stepping directly on the carpet, leaping from room to room and pointing out spots the other had missed with rapidly increasing standards until Richie told Eddie he'd missed the spot he was currently hoovering and Eddie whacked him with the metal pole. Then they'd hoovered Maggie and Went's bedroom and the bathroom and half of the spare room before the dust bag got too full and threatened to explode on them.

"I'm not touching it," Eddie said, watching the bulging bag like it was a rabid animal. "Do you even know how to change the bag on that thing?"

"Sure," Richie said confidently. He leaned down to detach it and promptly flooded the rug with half a house's worth of grime.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Well, shit." Richie passed the now mostly empty bag to Eddie, who tried not to whimper and failed, then went to yell down the stairs. "Dad!"

Went laughed when he saw them and, although Eddie didn't really find it funny, it was an infectious enough noise that he joined in. Deftly, Went took the old bag away without spilling any more dust and fixed on a new one, making a show of it as he hoovered up the debris off of both carpet and perpetrators, though he was considerably gentler with Eddie than Richie, whose armpits got comically long attention from the brush head.

"Stop it, you're drying me out!" Richie squawked, batting the hoover pipe away.

"Gotta get the stink out somehow," Went said mock seriously and took one last pass down Richie's back. "Okay, all clean then." He kissed his son's hair and straightened up. "No fault, no crime. Now go get another job from the taskmaster, boys."

"Thanks, Went," Eddie said on his way out, but he wasn't really sure why because Richie didn't.

"No problemo, Eduardo," Went said.

"You guys are crushing it!" Maggie didn't look up from her pot on the stove when they got to the kitchen. "Next job, um... The dryer's done so could you fold anything that's dry and hang up everything that's still damp?"

"Yep!" Richie popped the p sound and slipped into an old radio announcer voice. "One laundry service coming right up! Bespoke hand delivery! Personalized collection times!"

"Why would you have hand delivery as well as collection times?" Eddie asked. Richie flipped him the bird as soon as he was out of Maggie's line of sight.

They took the basket and tipped it out on Maggie and Went's bed, sorting through the load in relative quiet until, predictably, Richie spotted something and got that glint in his eye.

"How did your washing end up in our machine?" He asked, hand diving into the center of the pile and pulling out a bra.

Eddie put down the t-shirt he'd been folding (Richie's, a red one that he was particularly fond of) and fixed him with his best deadpan stare. "Ha, ha," he said sarcastically.

"You should really put it back on, apparently it can hurt your back if you leave your tits unsupported. Here," Richie stretched it like a rubber band and pinged it at him.

Eddie dodged it cleanly. "Fuck you," he said, then after a pause he hoped Richie wouldn't notice, "who told you that?"

"Your mom," Richie said, "pillow talk, y'know, she always gets so chatty post-"

"Beep beep," Eddie said, rolling his eyes. He should have seen that coming. He leant back and got the bra from off the floor, passing it back to Richie to put in Maggie's pile.

"Mom complains about it sometimes in the evenings," Richie said, an actual answer for once. He looked at the bra in his hands. "I wonder what it actually feels like."

"To have an aching back?"

"To have boobs, dickwad."

Eddie didn't have a comeback for that; something churned in his gut and he was suddenly uncomfortably hot, enough to feel it creeping up his neck and round his ears like a whisper. He watched as Richie looked at the clasp, fingers running over the little loops of wire as he did it up once, then undid it, then again, then he ran his fingers around the band, all the way, dipping underneath the cups to follow the rigid internal wiring. The only noise was the blood rushing in Eddie's ears as they both watched Richie's hands, something unnamable holding him in place, and horror settled on Eddie's shoulders as he realised what was about to happen only a second before, sure enough, Richie did it. First one arm through the strap, then the other, then he hiked it into place and stretched the band round the back, popping out his hips and twisting his chest like a pin up girl.

He was wearing the bra.

The whisper in Eddie's ears said, he knows something you don't.

"How do I look?" Richie batted his lashes, comically tucking a lock of his hair behind his ear.

"Stupid," Eddie forced through his dry throat, "cut it out, you shouldn't- that's not-" He tried to take a normal breath. Inexplicable embarrassment curdled deep inside him as Richie preened.

"Not what? Not PG enough for your virgin sensibilities?" Richie hopped off the bed and opened the wardrobe to examine his reflection in the mirror on the door. "I think I look hot." He dropped one hip, leg bending gracefully, effeminate like he'd never been before, and why the hell did this feel personal?

"It's not fucking funny, asshole!" Eddie's voice was rising and he was so furious he was shaking. He felt- he didn't know what he felt. Richie was still turning his body this way and that, one arm contorted ridiculously to hold the bra in place as he watched himself. Beyond him in the mirror, Eddie's own face was twisted as though in pain, eyes catching the light just a bit too much.

"I'm not being funny, I look seriously hot, like I would pick me up if I saw me in a b-"

Eddie was off the bed and tackling him before he knew it, an animalistic noise tearing from his throat, fingers scrabbling at the straps to pull them off, to rip the damn thing in half, to just get fucking rid of it somehow and he- he was- he wasn't crying, and he was on top of Richie, who was barely fighting back, who was laughing because he was still shooting up in an endless growth spurt so he could hold Eddie at arm's length without trying and still keep the bra on, and then he wasn't laughing and there was a thin red line blooming on his cheek and Eddie's nail had a jagged corner on it and he moved back as fast as he could, head hitting the chest of drawers as he gasped for air.

A moment of silence.

"What the fuck, Eds?" Richie sat up, touched the his cheek, looked at the blood on his finger.

"Don't-" Eddie sucked in a short breath- "don't call me-" the kind of breath that hurt on the way down- "that!"

"You cut me!" Richie shrugged the bra off, twisting to look at his reflection. "What the fuck, dude! What is your problem?"

Eddie couldn't speak, automatically reaching for his inhaler except he wasn't wearing his fanny pack. The room was spinning. He didn't even fucking need an inhaler, Christ, so what was this if not asthma?

Something blocked the light from the window. "Hey, Spaghetti, sorry, I-"

Eddie swatted away the hand on his shoulder. "Don't fucking touch me, Richie, don't you... You don't..."

Slowly, Richie slid down next to him, so close that their shoulders and the outside of their thighs were pressing together. It should have bothered him, but instead, he could feel every calm breath Richie was taking and he found himself following as best he could. For a while, his inhales were too sharp and his exhales too shaky, but he kept at it and in time, everything evened out until they were breathing together in silence and all that was left was the shame. Eddie closed his eyes. He wanted to put his head on Richie's shoulder. He didn't.

"I'm gonna go get us some lemonade and cookies," Richie said quietly.

Eddie nodded, didn't open his eyes, didn't say anything. When Richie got up, the places where they had been touching tingled like the aftermath of pins and needles.

"Sorry." RIchie had never sounded less like himself than in that moment, and Eddie had never wanted to be himself less than he did sitting there and listening to the footsteps retreating down the hallway.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was looking at the ceiling. He felt around on the floor until he found the discarded bra and stood, dropping it into Maggie's pile blind. By the time Richie had carried their snacks upstairs, Eddie had sorted through the rest of the load, splitting it into Maggie, Went, Richie, and those that were still damp (mostly socks).

"Finished," he said, as Richie came through the doorway.

"Oh," Richie said, surprised. "Thanks."

"Cool." Eddie took the glass Richie offered and gulped down the sugary lemonade, the tart sweetness immediately clearing the static buzz in his brain he hadn't noticed building. Then Richie held out a packet of cookies and together, they set to demolishing it.

When 5 o'clock rolled around and the first of the extended Toziers started arriving, the weirdness hovering somewhere between him and Richie had dissipated and instead, the weirdness Eddie was feeling seemed to come from the whole family. Everyone who came through the door, whether they were barely older than Richie or adults like Went and Maggie, hugged him. They hugged Richie first, of course, who, having been forced through a shower and into a somewhat unwrinkled plain t-shirt, accepted it all with preformative disgust that he betrayed with a wide grin. But they also hugged Eddie. One of the aunts, Miriam, kissed both of his cheeks like she was in a French movie; a cousin, Benji, complimented his polo shirt. And they talked to him, talked to Richie, asked questions and actually were interested in the answers. It was fully overwhelming.

Within half an hour, two dozen people had arrived and now Eddie understood why they'd dragged every chair-adjacent thing in the house into the lounge. Even then, there weren't enough seats but no one seemed to mind, sharing a three person sofa between five or just grabbing a cushion and sitting on the floor. Went stood in the middle of the room, flitting from conversation to conversation and unwrapping gifts as he was handed them, adding any ribbons to the collection he had started in a belt loop. The multicoloured curls hung at just the right height that Eddie knew, was it not his father, Richie would have made some kind of joke about pubes.

"Wow," Went laughed, as soon as Eddie had had that thought. He rolled his hips to make the ribbons swing erratically. "Looks like I'm finally becoming a man! Maybe it is my birthday after all." It was met with assorted laughs and groans and one distinct sound of disgust from the other side of the room where Richie was climbing one of the older cousins.

They caught eyes and Richie grinned at him as he was swung upside down; they had a split second conversation of exchanged 'ok' hand symbols and Eddie was just about to relinquish his hard-won seat and go join in when-

"So, how are we related, then?"

A portly man with Richie's exact nose and eyebrows was turned to him, body precariously balanced on a footstall in front of the sofa arm Eddie had claimed. "Um, we're not," Eddie said, "I'm Richie's friend from school. I'm Eddie." This man had picked him up in a bear hug not ten minutes ago. He was Went's oldest brother, Jake, from New York City.

"Ah," he nodded vigorously, "yes, of course. Well, Eddie, you're in the dangerous position of being the only person here I know I haven't yet bored with my stories. Do you know an actress by the name of Liza Minnelli?"

It turned out that most of Jake's stories involved Liza Minnelli because he had been her PA in the 70's, but they were funny and varied anyway and invited much correction from the assorted family members around them. After a while, Richie even came and joined, Eddie squishing against the wall to make space.

"I thought this was in Italy, not France," he interrupted, as Jake explained the time Liza had tried to buy a monkey from a public zoo.

"No, it was definitely France," Jake said, "I know because the memory smells like garlic and parsley."

"I heard Austria," chimed in Sarah, the cousin sitting on the actual sofa next to Eddie's arm.

As Jake turned to argue with her as well, Richie whispered, "he's making it up anyway, he makes up all his dumb stories."

"Shut up, I think they're cool," Eddie elbowed him without conviction. Richie had gained a plaster on his cheek at some point, his parents thankfully assuming the cut was just his own clumsy accident and forestalling Eddie's elaborate cover story (which had involved a cleaning bucket, some sponges, and no less than three moths). The plaster had little pictures of the Hulk on it and didn't cover the whole cut.

Richie saw him looking and twisted his head so Eddie could see better."I'm hoping it'll scar," he said. "Chicks dig a bad boy."

"I'msorry," Eddie said, rushing it out as one word.

"S'okay," Richie shrugged. "Like I said, it'll get me major pus-entages! Yeah, percentages are my favourite part of math for sure."

Jake, who had turned back now, fixed Richie with A Look and began to say something but then was distracted when Went started playing a vinyl he'd just been given. "Oh, I do love a spot of Nina. Went! You bastard, who gave you that?" And he rolled to his feet and was gone.

"Pussy," Richie said clearly. "That's what I was saying, major pussy."

"Yeah, I know, asshole," Eddie rolled his eyes. "Your family is very big and loud."

Richie hummed, looking around at the room. "Like your mother when I'm dicking her down," he said on rote, then he brightened as Eddie scowled. "C'mon, let's go help set up the food, I'm starving."

"Me too," Eddie agreed, even though he wasn't, and followed him out.

Dinner was an avalanche of sensory input; Went had given Richie and Eddie a beer to share so the tang of the cheesy pie and the roar of the Tozier clan hit Eddie's head more directly, but he didn't really mind. He thought at one point about going upstairs to sit in Richie's room for a quiet ten minutes but then someone started a game of charades in the lounge and he didn't want to miss that, obviously. He ended up squeezed into the office chair with Richie and they sat half on top of each other as everyone shouted out guesses for cousin Danny's terrible miming.

One game led to another, led to another, led to another (with ample breaks for dessert and birthday cake, of course) until it was gone midnight and there was only five non-Derry Toziers remaining: Danny, his wife Rita, aunties Catherine and Esther, and a snoring Jake.

"Somewhere over the rainbow," Went was giggling softly, cheeks a little redder than usual as he impersonated Danny's vague arm movements from earlier. "Dan, m'boy, you are not cut out for a life of clowning."

"Good thing I'm an engineer then," Danny said jovially, also tipsy, but Eddie's stomach dropped at the mention of- at Went's comparison. From the look he and Richie shared, he wasn't the only one. He gulped against the sudden tightness in his throat and focused on his own fingers as he fiddled with a loose thread on Richie's socks, conveniently placed in his lap as they were.

Jake let out a particularly nasal snore.

"Bedtime for the less lucid of us, I think," Maggie said, and Eddie glanced up to see her looking back at him with a complexly adult look on her face. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it that evening. He let go of Richie's feet. "C'mon, Richie, Eddie, I mean you," she prompted, her smile much easier to understand now.

"But I'm not t-tir-" Richie yawned so wide he couldn't finish. "Yeah, okay, point taken."

"You guys go clean your teeth, I'll get uncle Jake settled," Maggie said.

Richie trod on him three times as he climbed out the chair but Eddie couldn't be bothered to complain about it. He more or less rolled himself to his feet as Richie hugged each of his family goodnight. He kissed their cheeks, they didn't ask him to but he did. They kissed his. Eddie looked down at the floor.

"Happy birthday, dad," Richie said then squeaked, and Eddie looked up to see Went dragging him into his lap for a big hug, their arms thrown around each other and Richie's face buried into Went's neck, who was smiling just as deeply as he had been all evening. Eddie had never been hugged like that.

"G'night, Scritch," Went said, clumsily patting Richie's head as he clambered off the armchair, "thanks for all your help today."

"Night," Richie smiled, then stumbled towards the stairs, hitting Eddie's arm on the way past, "race you to the bathroom.

Eddie watched him trip on the first step and decided he didn't need to rush in order to win that race. He turned back to the room. "Night night, everyone, and happy birthday Went, and thanks for letting me stay, and, uh..." He hesitated.

Went saw him looking and held out his arms with a winning grin. "Eduardo! Come on, Eddie, my son-in-l-"

"Went," Maggie said curtly, as if reminding him of something.

"Sorry, Mags! Eddie," he continued, "c'mon, it's a birthday tradition here, I'm only-"

Maggie interrupted again, more annoyed this time. "Went, you're drunk, Eddie doesn't have to..." She trailed off as Eddie crossed the room and launched himself into Went's arms with a single-minded determination.

"Oof!" Went exaggerated with a laugh. "Thanks for your help too, Eddie, you're a good kid."

Eddie's throat was burning strangely, so he nodded once and broke the hug as quickly as he'd started it. He wondered, for a second, about hugging Maggie too, but then he'd probably lose the race so he just left without looking at her and clambered around Richie, who was still only halfway up the stairs.

"You trying the moves on my dad, Eddie Spaghetti?" Richie said through a yawn as Eddie overtook him.

"Fuck off," Eddie said tightly, and grabbed his arm to pull him up. So sue him, he wanted to get to bed sometime before the new millennium.

In the bathroom, Richie tried to convince Eddie it would be quicker if they cleaned each others teeth because they could see what they were doing easier.

"There's a mirror for a reason, asshole," Eddie said. Or rather, tried to say; it came out sounding a lot more like 'ferf uh virror por uh feafon, affoh' because Richie wouldn't stop cleaning his teeth long enough to let him speak.

"Pezbuh pumimat," Richie said, and Eddie didn't stop cleaning his teeth long enough to let him explain what that meant. It kinda hurt because Richie kept stabbing his gums with the hard plastic of the toothbrush, but he didn't mind, and his teeth felt clean enough afterwards. Either way, while they gargled their mouthwash, Richie didn't even threaten to spit on him so Eddie counted the whole thing as a win.

He was tired enough that when they got to Richie's room and saw the airbed set up on the floor by the radiator, cozy looking with one of Richie's pillows and its own double duvet, Eddie couldn't work out what he found disappointing about the whole set-up. He figured it might come to him in the morning, as he lay down and watched across the barely arm-length gap as Richie looked torn for a second and then got into his own bed.

"Night, Eddie," he said.

"Night, Richie." They both knew they were moments from crashing so they didn't make their usual sleepover pacts to not sleep and never say goodnight and all that crap they immediately went back on. Sure enough, within the minute, Eddie's eyes started feeling heavy. He poked his feet out the end of the covers the way he liked to sleep now, a conscious move to invite whatever fucking monsters around to come bite his feet and see what they'd find. Him and Richie, and all the other Losers, they'd put up a fight. He smiled to himself, which wasn't part of the nightly ritual but always seemed to happen anyway, and let himself drift off as he looked for patterns in the swirls of Richie's carpet. There was a bicycle, and there was a wave, and there was a turtle...

He woke up slowly, lifting heavily out of the dark gray of his semi-conscious thoughts as he tried to grasp onto the last threads of... Something, he'd definitely been thinking about something. But he was tired and whatever it was, whatever had felt so rich and defined a second ago was now gone so he blinked his eyes open. The room took longer to come into focus than usual (why was he so tired anyway?) but the blur of white and beige and blue eventually resolved itself into a familiar ceiling, a familiar frosted window, a familiar kitsch-ly patterned curtain. He knew this bed.

He rolled his head across the pillow with great effort, and saw Richie, apparently asleep in the chair with feet tucked around its limbs to stop him from slipping, but one arm flopped loosely across the room. His hand was within reach so Eddie made to touch it, to wake him up, but there was an oximeter on his finger and he didn't want to dislodge it, or the monitor cuff on his arm. He knew without looking that there was a drip in his other arm.

Richie, Eddie tried to say, Richie, but the noise came out as a weak croak of air, barely audible. Fuck, his throat was so dry. His third attempt came out as a two syllable wheeze and he was suddenly aware of the other noises around him, the muffled bustle of a hospital and the intimate beep of the machine next to his bed. Richie's gentle snores.

The left side of Eddie's face felt weirdly immobile, he thought it might be bandaged somehow, and the second he had that thought, three things made themselves evident in quick succession: one, his cheek ached like it had been torn apart; two, his chest felt similar but worse; three, he knew where he was. The beeping got faster.

"Richie," he said, forcing it out somehow, "Richie, Richie, Richie," and it was almost choking him but then Richie was awake and on his feet and pressing down on his shoulder, and motherfucking ouch-

"Eds, Eddie, you gotta calm down," he was saying, "you gotta lie down, man, come on, you're okay-"

"Richie, Richie, Richie," Eddie said, couldn't stop saying, could only widen his eyes, could only claw at his own chest through the hospital gown. He wondered if he was having a stroke, or a heart attack, or the tremors of impending spontaneous combustion. His whole fucking body hurt.

"I'm here, Eddie, just... I'm here, yeah," and Richie sounded different, was choked up, was crying, and a tear fell against Eddie's cheek that wasn't his own.

"Richie, did we do it?" Eddie cut himself off with a question, forcing his body back down against the pillows and gripping tight to Richie's arm as if touching something solid might pull his shaking body back into one piece.

"Yeah, we d-we did it," Richie said, interrupting himself with an undignified sob, "It's gone, you're alive, Eds, you're-" he looked away, his free arm twisting to scrub at his eyes under his glasses.

"The deadlights," Eddie realised, "the pole, I was... Pennywise- and you..." Horror twisted in his gut, intensifying the ripping ache of his chest even through what Eddie assumed was a heroic dose of painkillers. "How am I still here?"

Richie didn't answer, only twisted his hand tighter into Eddie's, and that sharp crush of bone on bone became his whole world for a second. He didn't understand anything, but he knew pain like this. Finally, after three fucking decades, he wasn't nauseous anymore.

He watched Richie hiccup himself back to composure, taking the opportunity for a close up look. He was more weathered than he had been as a kid, but not in a bad way, and though the stubble on his jaw now edged towards beard status, with more than a couple gray hairs joining the party, he still had that magnetic thing that Eddie could never look away from. The curve of his thumb as he straightened his glasses, the unruly shock of his hair, the same worn lines of his face that Eddie had watched form years ago. Their eyes met and it felt the same.

Eddie forced himself to ask, before he could chicken out. "And the others? Did anyone- did they all...?"

Richie smiled, or close to it. "They're all fine, all tucked up in a motel somewhere close, even Stan's okay. His wife was pretty confused on the phone, something about turtles if Mike heard right, but he's in the ICU in Atlanta. I promised I'd text the others when you woke up, but, uh, they definitely need the sleep."

"You guys taking shifts?"

"Uh, kind of..."

Eddie frowned. "What time is it?"

Richie checked his phone and didn't look back up. "Like, half three? AM, I mean."

"That's outside visiting hours," Eddie said, who'd had the schedule of Derry General memorised since before he knew his times tables. "Only family can stay overnight."

"Well, good thing we're married then, right?" Richie was still talking to his shoes. In Eddie's own, Richie's hand trembled minutely.

He swallowed around a lump in his throat, but it wasn't the kind he usually got when Richie involved him in his rule-breaking schemes. This felt bigger. "What?"

"I borrowed Bill's wedding ring," Richie said, holding his hand up awkwardly to show off the simple band on his ring finger. "It's kinda too small so I don't know if I'm gonna be able to give it back." He was smiling in a way Eddie had only seen once before, after a particularly targeted taunt from Henry Bowers.

"That's really bad, man, that could restrict the circulation to your finger, and they might have to cut it off which could-"

"You're worried about my finger?" Richie interrupted him. "That's what's bothering you here?"

Eddie scowled. "Yes, asshole, do you know how hard it would be to readjust to life with a missing finger? And the risk of infection with a wound like that? Especially when your relationship with your hand is so important to you."

"Baby, you were dead for an hour, you magically grew back a heart, I just told you this hospital thinks we're married," his face was between incredulity and vindication, "and you're worried about my ability to wank?"

Eddie opened his mouth then closed it. "Well, I'd never hear the end of it," he said logically.

Richie burst out laughing, an infectious sound full of relief and joy and a million other things Eddie hadn't felt since he was 13. He couldn't help but join in, despite the pain in his ribs and the bandage on his face and the exhaustion threatening to overtake him at any second. He laughed and laughed.

After a few minutes, the fit subsided and they both just fell into watching each other. The crease between Richie's eyebrows formed and reformed as he searched Eddie's face for the exact thing Eddie himself was looking for in Richie's. Maybe it was the drugs or the blunt force trauma, but Eddie finally let himself surrender to the tiredness because it brought with it a certainty he could no longer stop from settling in his bones. He was still holding Richie's hand.

"Just say it," Eddie whispered, "I already know." Like the magic words, he spoke it into existence and suddenly he did know. He really did understand.

Richie was still hesitant. "Eddie, you're hopped up on more drugs than I've ever taken, and I went to Madonna's Oscars after-party three years running," he shook his head, "I'm not gonna..."

"That's the worst humblebrag anyone's ever made," Eddie said bluntly.

"Fuck off," Richie said, but he smiled too.

"How can you say It's gone when you're still so fucking scared?" Eddie asked. "C'mon, dickwad, I'm not scared anymore. Look at me, I'm not scared of any fucking-"

"I love you," Richie choked out, eyes squeezed shut, hand trying to pull back out of Eddie's. Eddie wouldn't let it, had barely any strength in his whole body but he concentrated the last of it on keeping Richie's hand in his own.

"I know," he said calmly.

"No, Eds, I love, love you, like I really, big, gay, love you," he said, cringing into himself.

"I know," Eddie repeated.

"Fuck you, how could you? I wouldn't even admit it to myself, I'm a shit-for-brains coward, Eds." Richie met his eyes once more and there were tears threatening to overspill again. "All those years, never even once."

"I know," Eddie said and, cannula be damned, he reached over to touch Richie's face. "Me too, never even once, and if you make a joke about virginity, I'll kill you. I love you too."

"Don't say that," Richie pleaded, leaning into his hand, "please don't just say that, I can't..."

"I'm not just saying it," Eddie promised. "When we were kids, I loved you, asshole. You don't get the monopoly on gayness."

"Fuck you," Richie said wetly, "Pennywise never shut up about it for me, all you ever got was vomit and shit and diseases." There was something like hope shining in his eyes though.

"It offered to blow me a couple times," Eddie said, not wanting to be outdone. "But to be fair, It was the leper then, so I don't think the two are entirely unrelated, 'specially with the AIDs crisis being what it was and the way my mom talked about-" he saw the look on Richie's face. "Nevermind."

"Man, we are gonna have to go to so much fucking therapy," Richie sighed. He turned to pull his chair closer to Eddie's bedside and Eddie's hands flexed ineffectually around where Richie had been. He let them fall back onto the bed.

"Did you ever go to a therapist, over in fancy LA?"

Richie fixed him with a look. "Fancy LA?" He snorted and shook his head. "It's really not all it's cracked up to be, darling. What about you, New York hotshot?"

"New York's pretty great, but no," Eddie laughed humorlessly. "Myra and me, we didn't so much do the whole, y'know, mindfulness or whatever hippy shit."

"Oh shit, yeah, you have a whole ass wife," Richie said, eyes widening, "fuck, I was gonna work in so many jokes about her, I forgot. Is she hot?"

Eddie sized him up, then figured he was gonna find out anyway so it wasn't worth the effort. He closed his eyes. "She looks like my mom."

Richie choked a little, then his voice was filled with the kind of joy usually reserved for the parents of healthy newborns. "That's a hard yes then!"

"Oh, fuck off, my mother is dead, shithead, can't you have a little respect?"

"I respected her enough when she was alive," Richie said, "nightly at least!"

"Beep fucking beep, Richie!" Eddie glared at him. "I take it all back, I'm straight as a fucking arrow, you're disgusting." Richie laughed again, and Eddie had never heard this much laughter in a hospital, ever.

"No take-backs, darling," Richie grinned obnoxiously.

Eddie sighed deeply even though it hurt his ribs. "No, I guess not. You gonna do something about it then?"

Richie immediately looked nervous. "Do something?"

"I can't even sit up, asshole," Eddie tried to beckon him with his chin, "you have to come to me."

"Eds, your face has an extra hole in it..."

"So be careful."

"But think of the germs, I haven't cleaned my teeth since yesterday-"

"Do you want this or not? Fucking try me, douchebag, I'm not fragile!"

They glared at each other for a long moment, then Richie threw his hands up in defeat. "Fine! But I can hear your heartbeat, remember, Kaspbrak," Richie threatened, "if it goes above 100, we are stopping immediately."

"We're in a hospital," Eddie rolled his eyes, "there's no place better to have a heart attack."

"Why, mr K, you've become reckless in your old age." Richie leaned forwards, one arm braced on the bed and the other hand awkwardly trying to find somewhere to rest on the pillow without disrupting Eddie's angle.

"Oh yeah, and you're a paragon of normalcy," Eddie said, but he was mostly paying attention to keeping the beeps of the monitor from speeding up too much.

Richie's hand gave up its supporting role and settled for cupping his cheek, the non bandaged one. It was rough against Eddie's own less-impressive stubble, but the point where Richie's thumb touched his cheekbone could have contained Eddie's whole life, could have held all the shame and the misery and the regret and still turned soft under the lightest brush of Richie's thumb. Richie had gotten so close that Eddie had to go cross eyed to keep him in focus. Words rumbled from Richie's chest and Eddie felt the vibration in his own.

"What?" Eddie said.

Richie opened his mouth to repeat himself, but before he could speak, Eddie kissed him and the world finally fell into place.

* * *

SOME DAYS EARLIER

The gong reverberated through the room. "This meeting of the Losers' Club has officially begun," Richie proclaimed.

There was Bill and there was Mike, but mostly he saw a young boy with glossy brown hair and round eyes, hard with fury, sparkling with laughter, wide with fear. Last night, Richie had got the air mattress from under his bed because he'd known in his bones that they couldn't share the way he wanted them to, that some fears couldn't be overcome by a sharp stick and a fair throw. The boy had slept with his toes poking out from under the bunched-up duvet, just pressing ever so slightly against the radiator where Richie's socks had been hung to-

"Oh, look at these guys-"

-dry and Richie had stared at them until it was morning. Now it was the night after and the boy was gone but his mum had forgotten to pack away the sleepover stuff, so Richie had dragged his own duvet and pillows onto the floor to make a nest on the airbed. He didn't know why he wanted to sleep on this barely-there hardly-a-mattress rather than his own bed, but he did and he knew-

-said Eddie, but he was only looking at Richie.

-it was important.

**Author's Note:**

> i won't ever get tired of these two idiots confessing their love in angry and uneventful ways . i just want to hear them say it out loud , god dammit .
> 
> come find me on tumblr at [thisisagaysonlyevent](https://www.thisisagaysonlyevent.tumblr.com) if u want , i'd really really love feedback and comments , especially as i deliberately played it fast and loose with the time jumps in this so i hope it's not confusing to anyone . so um . yeah . comments would be the best .
> 
> thanks for reading !


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